BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, August 24, 1825

Beethoven writes a stack of letters today. The first is a letter to Nephew Karl dated today from Baden. “Dear little lump! Look at our mahogany wood [Karl Holz], how it’s stirring, my plan is already made. We’ll give the current quartet to Art [Artaria] and the last to Peters.—Look, haven’t I learned anything as well? Well, I see, I already have served as the merchant for you, so that you can find the way cleared. My stomach is terribly upset and there is no doctor to be had. I just need cut feathers, so send me those in a letter. Don’t write to Peters on Saturday either. We’ll wait a bit longer, and in that way we can pretend to show him that we don’t care. [Karl had written publisher C.F. Peters in July, offering a quartet in settlement of the 360 florins that his uncle owed Peters.]

“Since yesterday, I’ve had nothing but soup and a couple eggs and just water. My tongue is completely yellow and without purgatives and strengthening, my stomach will never recover, despite the Comö etc. doctor.“

“The third quartet [op.130] will also have 6 movements, and really it will be completely finished in 10, at the most 12 days. [It will not be finished until December, but this letter appears to confirm that Beethoven has begun writing the Grosse Fuge, which at this point is intended to be the Finale of op.130.]”

“Love me, my dear, and if I hurt you, it is not to injure you, but to do you good for the future. Now, I’ll close again. I embrace you from the bottom of my heart. Just be kind, good, diligent, and sincere, these are the limits of my happiness. Write, dear son. I’m sorry for all your worries about me. It will soon ease. Holz seems to be able to become a friend to us. I expect something written soon from my Benjamin, your faithful father.”

Brandenburg Letter 2042; Anderson Letter 1416. The reference to not writing Peters on Saturday relates to the being the postal coach day for Leipzig from Vienna. Sieghard Brandenburg suggests that “despite the Comö etc. doctor.” relates to Dr. Anton Braunhofer, and that “Comö.” may be some kind of reference to homeopathy. Braunhofer had given Beethoven at least one homeopathic remedy, in addition to a strict diet. A yellow tongue is one of the symptoms of a failing liver, though it could have a number of other causes.

Beethoven also writes a letter dated today to unpaid assistant Karl Holz: “Best Mahogany Wood! Cedars are unknown to us, so bear with me — your letter made me laugh, yes, yes. Tobias remains a Tobias, but we still want to pertobias him. — Castelli must get on with it, the thing will be printed and engraved for the benefit of all poor Tobiasses. — I am just writing to Karl that he should wait with the letters to P. [Peters] and S. [Schlesinger], i.e., I am awaiting the answer from Herr A. [Mathias Artaria] in Mannheim, regardless of which hellhound licks or gnaws at my brain, since it must happen now, only that the answer should not take too long. The hellhound in Leipzig can wait, and in the meantime, converse with Mephistophiles (the editor of the Musik.[alische] L.[eipzig] Z.[eitung]) in Auerbach’s Cellar, whom the latter will soon have, by the ears of Beelzebub, the chief of the devils.”

“Good fellow, the last quartet also contains 6 movements, which I intend to complete this month, if only someone could give me something for my bad stomach. — My dear brother again in the P.[ater]N.[oster]G.[ässel, i.e., Tobias Haslinger] Hi ha, but my best one, we hope that all these newly created words and expressions will survive into the third or fourth generation of our descendants — Come Friday or Sunday, Come Friday, when Satanas in the kitchen [housekeeper Barbara Holzmann] is still most bearable.”

“Farewell, thank you a thousand times for your devotion and love for me. I hope you will not be punished for it.. With love and friendship, your Beethoven.”

Beethoven adds a postscript: “Yes, yes, the Paternoster Gässel and our director [Ferdinand Piringer] are quite nicely involved. It’s a good thing to know, even if you can’t gain anything from it. Write again, come, even better!!” After the letter is sealed, Beethoven adds in French, “Don’t forget to visit my young Benjamin [Nephew Karl].”

Brandenburg 2043; Anderson 1415. The original letter was held in a private collection in Switzerland at the time of Brandenburg’s edition of the letters. Most likely there is a now-lost letter from Holz where he described the reactions from Haslinger to Beethoven’s letters of apology. There had been talk of dramatist Ignaz Castelli (1781-1862) turning the facetious biography of Haslinger into a comic cantata. When Beethoven refers to the editor of the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, he appears to mean Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, who had actually ceased to serve as the editor of that musical newspaper after 1818, but he still contributed to the periodical regularly.

Beethoven goes to a coffee shop this afternoon and copies down the names of two books from the Intelligenzblatt section of yesterday’s Wiener Zeitung: Daubenton’s Discussion about Undigestible Foods, 3rd improved edition; and Vienna and Environs by [F.C.] Weidmann, in a set of 5 excursions.’

Conversation Book 92, 17v-18r.

Beethoven writes an undated note to Nephew Karl, probably about today as well (it may be written the night before, and then sent earlier in the day than the letter above): “Dear Son! Here are the 40 florins, get a receipt and a few lines. [The payment for Karl’s tutor, most likely.] It won’t be so noticeable from the housewife [Frau Rosalie Schlemmer, the wife of Karl’s landlord] afterwards, although it is customarily thus everywhere for those under guardianship.”

“My wafers [for sealing letters] are all gone – shouldn’t you be able to send a box here somehow?! Write down the receipt right away — God be with you. Whatever happens, let me be freed from this old devil [housekeeper Barbara Holzmann]. — Don’t get involved in secret intrigues with the Herr Brother [Johann] — In general, let there be nothing secret against me, against your Most faithful father.”

“Farewell, farewell — the old witch and Satanas and me?!”

“You only have to insert the sum in the receipt and don’t need to do anything else. H[aslinger] hereby receives his instructions.”

“Good night!”

Brandenburg Letter 2039; Anderson Letter 1392. This letter seems to be tied to the conversation book on August 22 that he needs wafers and whether Holz can get him some. The 40 florins is probably the fee for Karl’s tutor, which was due on August 14th. The original letter is held at the Biblioteka Jagiellonska in Krakow (Mus. ep. autogr. Beethoven 27). The penultimate line appears to be related to the annuity for the care of Karl, which was paid through the Steiner music firm (and is now being split with Karl’s mother Johanna), and connects with Letter 2037, written on August 22, and the request that Karl bring him stamped paper for that receipt. It thus seems likely that this letter dates from August 24, the day after Karl saw Uncle Ludwig and presumably delivered the stamped paper to Baden. The form of the receipt was probably also enclosed with this letter.

Beethoven also writes an undated note about now to Tobias Haslinger, trying to patch up their relationship: “I hope, dear friend, that Holz has shown you my letter to the Mainzers [publisher B. Schott’s Sons, who published the facetious biography of Haslinger in their Cäcilia magazine without clearing it with Haslinger first], or rather, has given it to you immediately for forwarding, from which it will also become clear to you that I would have sooner died than allow such an abuse of what is truly a mere joke. To Berlin and Leipzig for that reason via the next post.” [Beethoven may have considered sending a copy of the letter to Schott’s to the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, but he appears not to have done so.]

“I have never taken revenge on even my fiercest enemies, just as can be seen in the example of Karl’s mother, to whom I show myself to be benevolent whenever I can. It was nothing but a joke, which can even excuse the word “geleert” [empty] instead of “gelehrt” [learned], for it is a mere play on words and not to be taken literally. These scoundrels also wrote what wasn’t there at all, for I wrote “geleerter Gesellschaften” [empty societies]. But since this is not the case at all, it is even less offensive with such a joke as this, and for once, it shouldn’t be anything else — giving it out was not something I had even considered.”

“I request that you have the receipt that Karl will deliver to you signed either by his mother or by the judge [poor relief judge Joseph Ecker] in her name. I absolutely don’t insist that both sign, but rather by only one of them or the other, and even then don’t give the money until the document is signed by me, in my own hand.—Farewell, dearest Tobias—You will be avenged, everything bad takes revenge of its own accord.—They are just as stupid as they are malicious.—Give my regards to the Grunting General Directorate P. [conductor Ferdinand Piringer] because he can’t shout, etc.—You know he can’t.— hope we’ll see each other here, but I should know in advance because when the weather is nice, I’ll probably make excursions.—Your amicus, Beethoven.”

Brandenburg Letter 2040; Anderson Letter 1412. This letter seems to have been an enclosure with Letter 2039 above, and likely was written on the same day. Beethoven had made a similar comment about Piringer being unable to shout in his letter to Holz of August 10th, though his meaning in both is apparently some kind of rude in-joke that is now lost to us. Brandenburg Letter 2028. The original of this letter is held in the Bonn Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection Br 147, and can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/6482017315192832/scan/0

Today’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.34) at 573 includes a report of concerts in Amsterdam through the end of June, 1825. “We only heard a few new operas, the most excellent being Fidelio by Beethoven, but we would have liked the cast to be better.”

The Intelligenzblatt supplement to this same issue of the AMZ includes an advertisement for several arrangements of Beethoven works that are recently published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. These include the Piano Quintet op.16, and String Quartet op.59/3, both arranged for piano four hands by an unidentified person (not Beethoven).